Which way...?

I have realized that we really have not given you an idea of how our days go. Although one day seems to blend with the other there is a wee process to our little world right now. So the day in the life of Kimberley and Viviana, Pilgrims on a mission, not sure what mission but it just sounds good. Viviana sets her watch for 6am which annoys the rest of the people since no one seems to get up as early. Why do we get up so early...? Because it takes us so darn long to get to A to B. We have the largest bags and everyone who passes us tells us just how big they are...talk about telling us the obvious but it seems to make them happy. It gets kinda annoying to hear it every day in and out...ah well. Once up we attempt to eat a wee bit, hopefully there is a cafe open to get a coffee. If there is no cafe, we panic and try to see how far to the next town for a coffee. Coffee is our bestest friend these days. It keeps the engine going as it were and well frankly is the only thing that gets my butt going. Never in all my days have I consumed as much coffee as I have on this particular trip. We actually plan our days on pace etc. to when we can get another cup. We are supporting the Spanish economy all on our own with just coffee.

We are up before the sun is up....currently that means it is freezing outside. As the sun rises we are reminded that life keeps moving even though we are barely aware of it at that point. As we drag our butts we try to keep moving with a pace which can only be compared to our traveling partners....the snails. We barely pass them but when we do we are usually trying to save them from the other pilgrims from stepping on them....we wonder why it takes us so long to get anywhere. If we are not saving hundreds of snails we are feeding stray cats along the route. We actually carry food for them....thus the big bags...okay not just because of that but it sounds better.

As the day goes we manage to amuse each other either by complaining about the weather, the trail-how uneven it is, since it kills my various injuries and basically makes both of us tired mentally trying to watch ever step so we do not fall all over the place. Let's face it, we have time on our hands here. To be fair our bitching does not last long and we just get down to busy which is walking. Today I had a thought about technology....here goes....we have managed to make it so we have more time, yet we still manage to do so little or fill it with nothing. It takes us roughly a day to walk 20km or so, so let's say it takes us 4 days to walk 100km, it would be a one hour bus ride to travel that same distance. So now we fill our time with what? We have eliminated the time to get to places yet, we never seem to have time for friends, family, whatever...how is that? This is what fills our days. We come up with lots of questions, sometimes we have answers but overall it is just more questions that we come up.

If the weather is good we sing. We forget most of the words and recall the chorus only. We go through lots of songs as you can imagine. We might be looking up some words so we can do an entire song just once.

After we make it to our 3rd coffee we are almost finished our day. Along the way we have the same people who were at the Albergue and slept in till 9am or so and then they pass us like nothing after a few hours. Then they manage to get all the beds. We are usually rushing to get at least one lower bunk since I cannot get my arse up one with my bad feet etc. I would pity the soul below me since I pee all night long.

Viviana usually rushes ahead tries to get us a lower bunk. Then we get our beds, stamp on our wee booklet to prove we are doing the camino and pay. Once in the bed we doctor our feet for roughly an hour. We fix what we can, then others have a look and see what they can do or just give you a look like, wow sure glad that is not my feet....then we have a good laugh since that is the camino.

Viviana usually has the energy and better feet etc. so she either seeks out food at a market or we decide to get ourselves to a pilgrim menu. Then off to bed at roughly 8:30 or so. Party down for us!!! Stop me now! Then we do it all over again, give or take meds for pain, and coffee amounts vary. We scooby snack along the path as well.

Enough said....

Ciao Kimberley

ps- we are getting exceptionally cold weather here they say...oh lucky us!